Monday, 4 August 2014

My Weekend at Alton Towers

My Weekend at Alton Towers

Hey everyone,

So since Saturday I have spent the past three days at Alton Towers.. and it really has been great. My family and I have stayed in the Alton Towers hotel before (there is two hotels, the other being Splash Landings; but never have done that one) and we have always had an amazing time. For those of you who don't know what Alton Towers even is and are just reading this as a load of jibberish... let me explain. Alton Towers is purely just a massive theme park in the UK with lots of thrilling rides. The resort also has two hotels, a big indoor water-park and a beautiful spa. We arrived midday Saturday and unfortunately the weather wasn't too pleasant. Of course, the UK is known for its unpredictable weather so as soon as we arrived it was truly hacking down. A lovely welcome can we say. Luckily though the rain did soon clear up but we just spent the day chilling in the hotel, had a few drinks at the bar and my brother and I was kept very entertained in the games room. Can I just say the amount of key rings we have in our bags from which we won with the good old 2p machines is quite unbelievable. We also went for a lovely meal in the evening in a restaurant in the hotel called the 'Emperors Grill'. The food was delicious and it had such a lovely atmosphere in there. After our meal we all then had some drinks in the garden and sat near the fountain.

On the way to Alton Towers. The drive from my house is around 4 hours long so my brother and I like to make a comfy little "den" in the back with blankets & cushions. Alongside lots of snacks & sweets. I always like to plug my headphones in on parts of the journey and just listen to my favourite songs.

In the hotel there is this HUGE chair which we always like to sit on. Lets just say it is not easy to get onto it... you literally have to jump, it is a nice unique feature that makes the hotel different. There sitting on the chair is little baby Oleg from the 'Compare The Meerkat' advert. I won him on one of those very entertaining yet irritating claw machine things (great explaining there). As you can see I was proud to have won him haha.

My mum and I loved the amount of cocktails to chose from. The one here is a Cranberry Cooler.. which was very refreshing, especially after a day of rides and walking around the park. My mum on the other hand stuck to the Pimm's, which is her favourite Summer drink.

The hotel has a beautiful outside area which is shown in the picture above. On the lake there was a load of stepping stones which my brother and I enjoyed going on. Still a child at heart.

These pictures are of my meal at the Emperors Grill. The food was lovely. On the second day we had an action packed adventure at the theme park. I went on all the rides and loved every bit of it. The first ride of the day was Alton Towers newest ride 'The Smiler' which is the roller-coaster with 14 loops in... the whole ride lasts 3 minutes long!!! Although it was fun I have to say I was very dizzy when I came off it. My favourite rides at Alton Towers are Oblivion, Air & the water rides. Unfortunately I haven't got any pictures of the actual park as I wanted to travel light so left my phone at the hotel. When we finished at the theme park my mum and I went to the gorgeous spa in the hotel. It was so nice to relax & unwind. It had a pool, whirl pool, hot tub and a variety of saunas. A little touch which I loved was a lemon ice face refreshers. In simple terms a bowl of cold water with ice and cut up lemon, in which you got a mit and patted your face with the water. SO refreshing. Again, didn't get any pictures of the spa :-( Last of all we went for dinner in the other restaurant 'The Secret Garden' which again was very nice. A lot nosier and more 'younger age' suited.

I absolutely loved this cocktail called 'Strawberry Woo Woo'. Very sweet yet refreshing. I love anything strawberry flavoured so this was one for me. It also had some peach extracts in which was a nice touch.. and of course the rest ;-)

Now lets all just take a moment to embrace this STARTER. I had to put that in capitals because how blimmin huge is this meal. If you are a cheese lover like myself and like Camembert you would adore this. The camembert came hot so you could dip the chunky bread in. I ended up sharing this with everyone as it was a struggle but so yummy.

This was my brothers main course.. talk about a feast & a half. His face was in amazement when it came.

This is the view from an outside seating area. We liked to take our drinks and sit in a little outdoor undercover seating bit facing the hotel. It was really nice as you could also hear the night time entertainment.

Here are our family of Minions! We didn't get a mother but the family still looks cute. We "won" these in the park. Top tip for everyone... if you are at a theme park and see those stalls with games on and the prizes are massive teddy bears or stuffed toys, visit them early/start of the day. If you go to them early they tend to give you the prize even if you don't win as they like you to walk around with the toy to make other people (kids) see it so they want to have a go. Fact!

And this was on the way home! I had such a fab weekend. My family and I really enjoyed it. We have stayed at the Alton Towers hotel before so we knew the ropes but I really would recommend it to anyone. It can be a mixture of fun, relaxing and thrilling. Even if you are not a massive roller-coaster fan you could still have a nice weekend/day as there is so much to do. They even have a big golf course. If you have been here let me know in the comments what you thought!